Spring Thaw

The frigid and windy weather finally broke today. The temp made it all the way up into the high forties. About twenty degrees warmer than last week. The two people pictured above went for a little boat ride in their scallop boat. There were some pretty big ice floes stuck in the Horseshed during low tide this morning. The Horseshed is an area of the harbor located directly opposite Brant Point. The depth of water in the Horseshed can range anywhere between 0 and 2 feet at low tide. I'm hoping the ice floes resting on the bottom there today didn't do too much damage to the seed scallops. Here's a picture of the ice floes in the Horseshed-


A regular reader of the blog asked me in the comments section if I had any pictures of the three sinking boats that are in the mooring field. I went out today and grabbed a shot of them. Here's a boat that is in the worse danger of sinking if it isn't attended to very soon-


And this sailboat is about to sink as well-

She had a much more prominent list before the ice formed around her. Now the ice is keeping her up.

It's hard to tell from this photo and the angle of the photo but this little sailboat has quite a bit of water weighting her bow down-


Hopefully the owners of these boats will be contacted so they will be able to take action so their boats will not sink. Most of the time, the owners of boats left out in the mooring field are long gone and never heard from again.

Click on the picture below. A collection of a few of the blog pictures are available there. More pictures will be added in the future.

Nantucket Waterfront News

Today's High & Low Temps
High 46.8
Low 23.2

'Nother Cold Day At The Waterfront

It was another very cold day around the waterfront today. I was down at Brant Point Lighthouse early this morning and took the above video clip of a dragger coming in. Notice she is covered in ice.
Here's a closer look at her-

I've seen her here before. She is usually tied up at the End of the Town Pier.

There were several sea ducks milling around Brant Point Light when I was there this morning. Here is a shot of a pair of male Eider Ducks-


And here is a picture of a freight boat navigating down the icy main channel-


Click on the picture below. A collection of a few of the blog pictures are available there. More pictures will be added in the future.

Nantucket Waterfront News

Today's High & Low Temps.
High 27.1
Low 8.6

Windy And Cold Waterfront

The weather around here has been very cold and windy lately. Very rare for early March. Nighttime temperatures have been in the single numbers and low teens and daytime temperatures have struggled to make it into the teens and twenties. The cold has not seemed to bother the waterfront birds as seen in the above photo. They always seem pretty comfortable no matter what the weather is like.

The harbor has begun to freeze over as well as the sound. It is a slushy ice mainly forming on the south side of the harbor and off of Cliffside and Jetties Beaches. Here's a shot of the Monomoy area taken late this afternoon-

While I was looking around there I spotted three boats out in the mooring field in danger of sinking. One was a cabin cruiser listing heavily on her starboard side and the other two were small sailboats laden with ice and about to go down.

Here are two boats that were riding well on their moorings on the rough harbor-



I went and had a look at the Children's Beach boat ramp project today. It looks like they have slowed down a bit from last time I checked it out. I don't know what they are doing now but it looks like some kind of a form they are building for the concrete slabs. Here's a shot of the project I took this afternoon-


Nobody has been out bay scalloping since this past Monday. Tomorrow doesn't look good either. Another three weeks and the season will be over. It went by fast this year. I hope to go out again sometime as soon as the weather breaks and the incessant wind lays down.

The Ruthie B. has been gone for almost two weeks now. I think she's over in New Beige either getting some work done on her or her captain is looking for a crew.

I was very surprised to see the Hy-Line come over this afternoon in all this wind. The Grey Lady is having her annual maintenance done so they are using the original Grey Lady renamed Lady Martha. She's much smaller than The Grey Lady. I can just imagine the ride the passengers had on that little boat this afternoon crossing the sound when it was blowing 40 mph. I hope they had seat belts.

Today's High & Low Temps
High 33.3 (unconfirmed)
Low 15.8